It looks like crack, but it is much cheaper, four times more lethal and called “oxi” or “oxidado” (rust). It’s a cocaine derivative, just like crack, but it contains kerosene or gasoline, acetone, battery fluid and other chemicals. …

Oxi is known as ‘the drug of death’ because it’s extremely harmful to the body and addictive right after the first try. “You use oxi once, and you want to use it two, five, ten, twenty times,” a 25-year-old oxi-addict told Brazilian TV.

Users take on a yellowish skin color, lose weight very quickly and develop liver problems. They start to look like emaciated living corpses in just a few weeks time. The drug causes stomach aches, vomiting and constant diarrhea, but perhaps the most alarming fact is that most users die within a year.

Al-Jazeera has posted an interview with a man, “Elias,” who is in drug rehab for the third time fighting his addiction to oxi. He is from Rio Branco, near the border with Bolivia and Peru in the Amazon region. Rio Branco is ground zero for oxi:

Al-Jazeera: You told me that before you used Oxi you used some marijuana and cocaine. How is Oxi different from those drugs?

Elias: Oxi is a drug that is a prime material to make crack cocaine. But Oxi is more pure. The effect of Oxi is very strong. When I used it, I could not go without it. The desire to use it was very big. It is so powerful, that in a matter of weeks I was totally addicted. I didn’t eat. I didn’t feel hungry. You lose hunger, and you’re desire for sleep.

But above all, it is very cheap. One rock can get you four inhales and it’s only five reais (about $3). Compare that to cocaine, which is about 100 reais a dose (about $61).

Oxi is cheap, you have easy access to it, and it is more devastating than other drugs and does more damage to your body faster.